News for Monday, 28 May 2007

We mentioned it over a year ago : in OS X system preferences, as in the menu toolbar, all Bluetooth related function suddendly vanish, as if no component (module or external dongle) were installed.
The related topic on our French forum was ever since frequently updated, as new cases kept on appearing on a continual basis, concerning a wide variety of machines. If for laptops, an easy solution would work in certain cases (shut off the laptop, unplug the battery charger for a while, will restore the lost Bluetooth), it's far from being that easy on desktops that experience this issue. Classical manipulations (reset PRAM, repairing authorizations, deleting plist file...) are most of the time uneffective ; USB peripherals were sometime incriminated, without any lead there again to a universal way of solving this bug. So, it's all about experimental attempts to deal with it... especially since, when restored, Bluetooth won't work for more than a short time!
Maybe it is obvious, yet let's say it again: why not deal with this issue once and for all? What good is there to offer Bluetooth functionalities, and even a stock BT equipment on almost every machine (which by the way, as the old macusers will remember, took quite some time), if OS X won't properly manage it? It would be interesting to know whether MacIntel machines presenting this issue will still be concerned if booted under Windows via BootCamp. Though archaical Microsoft system might be, MacIntel owners maybe already noticed an undoubtedly better Bluetooth management under Windows XP than under OS X... despite the latter overall greater qualities. Bluetooth range and sensibility, in particular, looks quite better.
This news item doesn't only aim at reminding that this problem is still there, but also wonders about a reaction from Apple. The 10.4.9 delta update supposedly brought a solution according to Apple knowledge base , therefore implicitly acknowleding this issue. Did it vanish though? We'd like to be convinced, and expect to read testimonies about this. Yet doubt remains, and won't be easily discarded.